


4 am

by bowties_Scarves_and_Plaid



Series: The World Needs More Mac and Riley [5]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Mac and Riley, Riley is a persistent little thing, Team as Family, mac keeps secrets, maybe goes a little too far but you can decide, she just wants to help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 06:03:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13265247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowties_Scarves_and_Plaid/pseuds/bowties_Scarves_and_Plaid
Summary: Riley notices that Mac has been going into Phoenix at 3 or 4 in the morning for the past few days. He seems to be having trouble sleeping and no one else in Phoenix can/will offer her an explanation. She knows that something is wrong and decides to use slightly extreme methods to figure out what it is.





	4 am

Riley wouldn’t have picked up on it if she hadn’t decided to personally run a check on all of Phoenix’s security systems. They had a rare day without any missions so she had decided to make sure that Phoenix was secure as possible. She was looking through the front door logins when she noticed that for the past three nights, Mac had entered Phoenix at 3 or 4 in the morning.

She quickly brought up the video feed for the previous night and watched as a very tired looking Mac made his way into the building. He went down to the lab and started working on some project. He didn’t stop until 7 am when the rest of the team arrived. Riley watched as he ran he hands over his face, took off his lab coat, and headed up to join them.

She thought back to how Mac had been acting over the past few days. He had seemed a little tired, but she had just chalked that up to the fact that they had been working nonstop. Now that she was thinking about it closely, he had been slightly more withdrawn and quiet, but not enough that she had picked up on it at the time.

She knew that Mac and Bozer were both in the lab, working on some think tank related project, so Riley headed off to find Jack. She wasn’t surprised to find him in the tack room, cleaning and checking over all of the weapons. Riley was sure that someone else was in charge of that, but like her and the security system, Jack liked to double check things himself.

“Hey, Jack,” She greeted.

“Hi Riles, how’s our security system looking?”

“I’d like to see someone try to get in,” Riley said confidently.

“Me too, so what’s up? Or did you just come up here to admire my guns.” Jack said, flexing his biceps and wiggling his eyebrows at her.

“Gross, no. I uh, I wanted to see if you’ve noticed anything up with Mac recently.” Riley said deciding there wasn’t really a subtle way of getting into the topic.

“Mac?” Jack dropped his hands and went back to taking apart the gun. “Mac is great.”

“It’s just that the past three days he has come here at 4 in the morning and stayed until the rest of us got here. Then he goes up into the war room and goes about the day as normal.” Riley said and was surprised when Jack simply shrugged and kept his attention on his gun.

“You know how the kid gets when something is stuck in his brain. It’s probably whatever geeky project he is working on down there.”

“Maybe…” Riley wasn’t so convinced. “It’s just that he’s been quieter than normal and not getting enough sleep can be dangerous in this line of work.”

“Riles, he’s a professional. He can do the job on no sleep for days straight. Mac’s fine,” Jack insisted. Riley studied Jack as he talked, his stance and voice were a little too nonchalant, in a way that seemed almost forced. There was also the fact that he was brushing her off. Jack would never do that when it came to Mac’s health or safety.

“You know something,” She accused. Jack finally stopped cleaning the gun and looked up at her, his gaze serious.

“I know that Mac is fine. Give him a couple more days and he’ll be back to his old self.” Jack looked at her intently for a few more seconds before resuming his task. Riley knew that he considered this conversation closed and she knew that she wouldn’t get any more information out of him.

“Okay, fine.” Riley turned and left, not too happy about being dismissed and kept in the dark. She found an empty room with a Phoenix computer and started doing some digging. She looked at the mission that Jack and Mac had gone on three days ago. There was nothing unusual about it. So she went back a couple more days, and then a couple weeks. She couldn’t find any red flags in any of the missions.

She thought it may be an anniversary of something, so she started going back through every year since Mac has started, but still nothing. She was trying to think of what to search next when there was a knock on the door. Riley quickly exited out and called for the person to enter.

“Hey,” Cage said when she walked in

“What’s up?”

“Matty wanted to see if you’ve finished the systems check yet. I think she has another job for you if you have.” Cage said looking at the computer screen and then back at Riley.

“Yeah, just finished. I’ll go see what Matty wants.” Riley said, standing up. But before she could take a step, Cage closed the door and turned to her with narrowed eyes.

“What’s wrong with you?” Cage asked with eyes that could see right through any lie. So Riley didn’t even try. She sat back down in the chair with a sigh.

“When I was checking the system I noticed that Mac has been coming here early in the morning for the past three days. I was concerned so I told Jack about it. I think he already knew about it, or at least knew something, but he wouldn’t tell me. He just said Mac would be fine in a few days.”

“Ah, so you went snooping around their previous missions to see if you could figure out what was wrong,” Cage said, putting her hands in her pockets and leaning against the wall.

“Yeah, but I didn’t find anything.”

“He has been a little off recently” Cage admitted.

“Do you think you could figure out what is up?” Riley asked hopefully

“Oh, I’m sure I could. But I’m not going.” Cage said extinguishing Riley’s hope.

“But-”

“Riley, I’m still pretty new to this team, and no one is going to trust me if I am constantly worming my way into their heads. You all have secrets and so do I. It’s important that we share these secrets when we are comfortable, not when I decide to figure them out.” Cage interrupted Riley’s protest. Riley didn’t like it, but she knew that Cage had a point.

“Yeah, that makes sense.” However, she wasn’t new like Cage. And she was tired of constantly being on the outs when it came to her team. Jack and Mac basically knew everything about each other. Bozer knew a side of Mac that no one else did. Jack knew all about her. And Matty knew pretty much everything about all of them.

Riley had been a part of the Mac and Jack team before Matty and Bozer’s time, but sometimes she felt like the odd person out. She was done with feeling like that. If this was an annual thing, she wasn’t just going to sit by and let a mysterious week roll by every year where her friend was in pain. Riley was going to figure out what was going on with Mac so she could figure out how to help him.

“Why do I get the feeling that you aren’t going to let this go?” Cage said with a hint of a smile.

“Because you are good at reading people and I’m bad at letting things go,” Riley said with a smile of her own.

“Just keep me out of it, and don’t forget Matty wants to see you,” Cage said as she walked out of the door.

“So if I figure it out, you don't want to know?” Riley called after her

“I didn’t say that” came the response.

Riley smiled again and went back to this computer, this time to actually finish the security check. When she had finished she went up to give her report to Matty. Riley was tempted to ask Matty about Mac, but she knew it would be a dead end. She was sure that Matty knew what was going on, but there was no way that she would tell Mac’s secrets. Matty hadn’t become one of the best spies in the business by having loose lips.

After Riley had finished getting satellite images of a very remote area in Canada for Matty, most likely a part of their next mission, she headed down to the lab. She figured if anyone was likely to tell her what was going on, it would be Bozer. He loved telling her stories about Mac’s and his childhood. He had also spilled the beans on things like why Mac hated his birthday, so Riley figured she could get him to tell her this one. Boy, was she wrong.

“Nope, nuh-uh, no way,” Bozer shook his head hard. She had gotten him away from the lab by asking if he wanted to grab some food with her. Mac had been so engrossed in his project that he had barely seemed to notice her or their departure.

“What? Why not?” Riley said in surprise

“Not this time you sly vixen. There are something things that Mac has made me promise not to talk about. Have you tried asking him? If he wants you to know he will tell you.”

“Are you really telling me that if I go downstairs and ask Mac what is up he will give me an honest answer?” Riley said, crossing her arms and fixing Bozer with a glare.

“If he wants to. Riles, I can’t tell you, so just leave it be.” Bozer gave her an apologetic look and practically ran away. Riley sighed at his retreating back. It seemed that she had no choice but to talk to Mac. She had been hoping to go into the conversation fully informed, but that looked like it wasn’t an option. Riley would have to go in blind and hope that she could help with whatever it was.

She wanted to talk to Mac in private and preferably when his guard was down a bit, so she decided that she would wait until his next 4 am Phoenix visit. After everyone had left for the day, she settled herself on a bed in the infirmary and set an alarm to alert her when the Phoenix doors were accessed.

*****

At 3:30 am, Riley was woken up by an annoying beeping. It took her a little while to remember where she was and why her alarm was going off at this ungodly hour. When the pieces finally clicked into place she picked up her phone and saw that Mac had just entered the building.

Trying to rub the sleep out of her eyes, Riley got a soda out of the vending machine before heading down to the lab. She needed to be fully awake for this conversation and for that she needed caffeine.

Mac’s back was to her when she entered and he was fiddling with something made out of a bunch of machine parts that she couldn’t even hope to name. His hair was a bit damp, probably from a recent shower.

“What are you working on?” She asked from the doorway, hoping not to freak him out too much. It didn’t work. Mac jumped almost a foot in the air and overturned the stool he had been sitting in. He whirled around to face her, clutching his heart and breathing heavily. His wide eyes only got wider when he saw it was her.

“Riley...wha...oh my god.” He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” She walked over to him and picked up the stool. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

“I just...didn’t expect anyone. Why are you here?” Mac repeated his question and Riley decided to answer it this time.

“I saw that you have been coming in at this time for the past few days and I thought that I’d come and see why.”

“And you couldn’t have just asked me?” Mac seemed to have recovered from the shock of her arrival.

“So you could lie to me and tell me that everything is fine?” Riley said bluntly. Mac opened his mouth as if to argue with her, but then seemed to think better of it.

“It’s still a bit dramatic, you showing up like that,” He said instead.

“Maybe, but I’m sure Jack would vouch for the fact that I have always had a bit of a dramatic streak,” Riley said with a shrug and jumped up to sit on the counter next to Mac’s machine. Mac eyed her for a few seconds and then sat back down on his stool.

“I’ve just been having trouble sleeping. It happens sometimes and working on a project helps.” He said, going back to tightening screws on his machine.

“And why have you been having trouble sleeping?” Riley asked, knowing that wasn’t the full explanation. “Nightmares?”

“No,” Mac shook his head, “not exactly.”

“Mac,” Riley put her hand over his to try to get his full attention. Mac wasn’t an overly tactile person, and neither was Riley, so the move was enough to get him to stop working and look at her. “Look, I know I haven’t known you since you were ten like Bozer, or had your back through hundreds of missions like Jack, but I want you to know that you can talk to me,” Riley said as Mac looked at her with tired, guarded eyes. “If you don’t want to talk, that’s fine. But I am not leaving. I am gonna stay and keep you company and I’ll come back tomorrow and the day after that.” She fixed him with her most stubborn look to let him know that she was serious.

“So you won’t force me to talk or pester me with questions?” Mac raised his eyebrow in a skeptical way.

“Nope, we can talk about something else, or just sit here in silence. I just want you to know that you aren’t alone.”

“I know that,” Mac said quietly, his gaze softening considerably at her words. His blues eyes were full of gratitude that he didn’t seem to be able to voice. Riley nodded and took her hand off of his.

Mac went back to work and Riley asked him to explain what he was doing. Over the next few hours, Mac broke down everything he was doing into a way that Riley could understand. She kept her promise and didn’t pressure him into talking about what was going on. She simply listened to his steady stream of scientific words until Bozer arrived with a plate of pancakes for Mac. Bozer only looked partially surprised to see Riley.

Mac split his food with her and then the three of them headed up to the war room and went about the day as normal. Riley was exhausted, but she didn’t let it show. She had no idea how Mac had kept up that schedule for four days in a row.

*****

The next morning, Mac didn’t jump when Riley entered the lab. He had his project out again but didn’t seem to be doing anything. Riley sat on the counter and got her first good look at Mac. He looked wrecked. He had dark circles under his eyes and tear tracks down his cheeks. Riley had to physically bite her lip to keep from asking him what was wrong.

Instead, she just took one of his hands and held it in her lap. She may not be able to comfort him with words, but she could at least let him know that she was there for him. They sat like that for a long time. Just when Riley thought she wouldn’t be able to take the silence anymore, Mac spoke.

“You asked me yesterday if I had nightmares and I said not exactly…” His voice was rough and hesitant. Riley didn’t say anything for fear of spooking him back into silence. “I have these dreams, I get them sporadically throughout the year, but around this time they get worse. But they aren’t nightmares, they are actually pretty good dreams.” Mac looked at her and gave a small smile. He looked more like his normal self and Riley relaxed a little. The quiet, sad, motionless Mac had been kind of freaking her out.

“What do you dream about?” She asked softly

“My mom,” Mac’s voice was barely a whisper, but those two words caused everything to fall into place. It was the anniversary of his mom’s death. Riley silently rebuked herself for not figuring that out. “I don’t really remember much about my mom, most of the things I know about her come from my grandfather’s stories. Occasionally those stories find their way into my dreams. They are good dreams, but when I wake up it always takes me a few seconds to realize that it was just a dream. For a split second, it feels like I just lost her all over again.” Mac’s voice was surprisingly steady, but his eyes were distant and a tear slipped out of the corner of one.

“So you come here to get lost in your work.” Riley finished, reaching out to brush away the tear. Her heart broke for her friend. She wasn’t much younger than Mac, but she had always looked up to him as almost an older brother. He was always so strong and confident and she didn’t really know what to do now that he seemed to be neither. 

“Exactly, the anniversary of her death is today. Every year this happens for a few days before and after. Nothing I do seems to stop it, although I’m not entirely sure I would want it to stop. As rough as it is waking up from one, I like the dreams, they make me feel closer to her.”

“I don’t pretend to know what happens after someone passes on, but Jack would probably say that she is looking down on you and this is her way of letting you know that she is still around,” Riley said, not sure if she believed her own words. She looked at Mac in surprise when he laughed.

“That is almost exactly what Jack said the first time I told him about the dreams. I tried to explain to him that it was more likely just a result of my subconscious picking up on the fact that I was thinking about my mom more often and translating that into dreams, but he either didn’t understand or refused to accept that explanation.”

“Or both,” Riley said, glad to see that Mac seemed to be getting back to his old self.

“I’m sorry if I worried you, Riles, I just wasn’t ready to talk about my mom yet.” 

“You don’t have to apologize, I’m just glad you are talking about it now.” Riley hurried to assure him.

“It’s been a while since I’ve had to tell someone new. Bozer and Jack have known for years and they both have their own ways of showing their support.”

“Bozer makes you breakfast,” Riley said

“And lunch and dinner,” Mac said with a smile, “And Jack makes sure that our workload isn’t too heavy.”

“That explains the mysterious no mission days,” Riley said and Mac nodded. He gently pulled his hand away from hers. She had forgotten that she was still holding it. Mac stood up and stretched and shook out his body. Riley smiled at the moment, she was surprised that he had been able to stay so still for so long. “Do you want to talk about your mom? Or would you rather explain to me more about how this doohickey works?” Riley asked. Mac considered the options for a few seconds before saying,

“I think I’d like to finish this machine, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” Riley motioned for him to continue. Mac had opened up to her a lot and she was okay with going back to what they had done the previous night. She knew what Mac was going through now and he knew that the door was open if he wanted to talk.

“...and this right here is fascinating,” Mac said as he pointed at a part. Riley couldn’t resist the urge to ruffle his hair. He looked affronted and asked, “What was that for?”

“You’re just such a nerd.”

“Yeah, well so are you. Just about different things.” He pointed out and Riley had no rebuttal for it since it was true. So she gestured for him to continue and settled in for another couple hours of science talk from her favorite geek.


End file.
